Heath Ledger: Apparently No Longer Alive

From MSNBC (and I’m sure by now many other places) comes the astounding news that Heath Ledger has died at the age of 28 in an apartment in New York City. At this very sad and unexpected moment we should pause to salute his contributions to nerd cinema. While not even remotely nerdy himself, he did worthy service in the surprisingly watchable A Knight’s Tale and the unfortunately almost totally unwatchable Brothers Grimm.

But he will mostly be remembered for his now-posthumous performance as the Joker in this summer’s The Dark Knight, which I saw a few minutes of and which looks like it will be very good — very gonzo, very out-there: